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This fourteen-key, gourd-resonated frame xylophone is one of two basic xylophone models used by the Dagaare people of the northwest corner of Ghana. Gyil are often played in pairs and accompanied by vessel drums to provide the music for songs and dances.

A box zither with fourteen courses of three string each and two slender bamboo striking sticks. The khim is one of several instruments derived from the Chinese yangqin, itself adapted from the Persian santour.

Quite unique in form, the kora is a 21-string bridge harp (alternately known as a "harp-lute") with a long neck and rounded body. The player sits cross-legged and holds the instrument nearly vertical, by its two handles—the melody is played by the index fingers, while the thumbs provide an ostinato.

A Japanese zither with thirteen synthetic strings of equal length, thickness, and tension, stretched over two fixed bridges and thirteen movable bridges. The koto has associated with it a large repertoire of music and, in addition to being used as a solo instrument, is also found in ensembles such as the instrumental trio called sankyoku.

The mbira dzavadzimu has a strong association with traditional Shona spirit possession practices, but it also has come to be incorporated in other settings more secular in nature. Most commonly, a mbira dzavadzimu is wedged into a large hemispheric gourd resonator called a deze (not pictured) that greatly increases its volume.

A lute with a long (hollow) wooden neck, the sitar makes use of two gourd resonating chambers, one of which is overlaid by a convex wooden soundboard. The modern sitar features four melody strings, three drone (chikari) strings, and between twelve and twenty sympathetic strings, which are tuned to the scale of the raga being performed, and add a metallic shimmer to the notes played.

This fourteen-key, gourd-resonated frame xylophone is one of two basic xylophone models used by the Dagaare people of the northwest corner of Ghana. Gyil are often played in pairs and accompanied by vessel drums to provide the music for songs and dances.

A box zither with fourteen courses of three string each and two slender bamboo striking sticks. The khim is one of several instruments derived from the Chinese yangqin, itself adapted from the Persian santour.

Quite unique in form, the kora is a 21-string bridge harp (alternately known as a "harp-lute") with a long neck and rounded body. The player sits cross-legged and holds the instrument nearly vertical, by its two handles—the melody is played by the index fingers, while the thumbs provide an ostinato.

A Japanese zither with thirteen synthetic strings of equal length, thickness, and tension, stretched over two fixed bridges and thirteen movable bridges. The koto has associated with it a large repertoire of music and, in addition to being used as a solo instrument, is also found in ensembles such as the instrumental trio called sankyoku.

The mbira dzavadzimu has a strong association with traditional Shona spirit possession practices, but it also has come to be incorporated in other settings more secular in nature. Most commonly, a mbira dzavadzimu is wedged into a large hemispheric gourd resonator called a deze (not pictured) that greatly increases its volume.

A lute with a long (hollow) wooden neck, the sitar makes use of two gourd resonating chambers, one of which is overlaid by a convex wooden soundboard. The modern sitar features four melody strings, three drone (chikari) strings, and between twelve and twenty sympathetic strings, which are tuned to the scale of the raga being performed, and add a metallic shimmer to the notes played.

If you’ve got a few minutes, you can take a whirlwind tour of the world’s musical instruments by visiting Grinnell’s World Music Instrument Collection in the Bucksbaum Center for the Arts. There, you’ll find instruments as diverse as the tarka flute from the Andes, the djembe drum from West Africa, the tambura lute from India, and the koto zither from Japan, all in the same room. The World Music Instrument Collection serves the Grinnell community in many ways, and even influences far-flung music enthusiasts, thanks to its extensive online database.

The instrument collection, which occupies a large wall in the Cornell World Music Room, has been assembled during the last 30 years through a variety of means. A small collection was in place when ethnomusicologist Roger Vetter joined the Grinnell music faculty in 1986. “I started to buy instruments central to the classes I inherited,” the professor of music says.

Many more have been gifts from Grinnellians (if you have an instrument to donate, contact Vetter at vetter[at]grinnell[dot]edu). Visiting professors have added different instruments based on their own research interests. Vetter himself has added numerous instruments as the result of his own extensive travels to Hawaii, Indonesia, Ghana, and Zimbabwe. He once even contributed a banjo he found at an antique shop in Des Moines. “‘Opportunistic’ is the key word,” he says.

The instruments are hands-on educational materials for students in practicum classes such as the Javanese Gamelan Ensemble, and also serve as informal supplemental tools in courses such as Music, Culture, and Context. “Instruments also have value as objects of material culture,” Vetter adds. “I use musical instruments as teaching devices in many classes, whether or not we are actually playing them.”

Vetter hopes to someday arrange an exhibition in the Faulconer Gallery to display selected instruments as art objects and educate viewers about their construction. In the meantime, he has taken advantage of the spacious Cornell World Music Room to set up a sort of permanent museum, and he encourages anyone interested in seeing the collection to contact him (vetter[at]grinnell[dot]edu).

Thanks to an online database that includes pictures of every instrument, detailed descriptions, and audio samples, people anywhere can also benefit from the collection. Vetter and the department’s curricular technology specialist launched the site in 2000 after a long process: taking professional photos of each instrument, listening to more than 1,000 CDs to find appropriate audio examples, and writing the descriptions.

The result is a valuable resource. “Now, anyone searching for a particular instrument might come across the website,” Vetter says. Professors of ethnomusicology at other institutions regularly use the site in their classes, and Vetter’s former students who now teach have also introduced the site to their students.

Collecting instruments is a lifelong hobby for Vetter. He spent the fall semester of 2009 teaching in Sri Lanka, and he brought back a couple of instruments to add to the collection. “I held myself back,” he says with a smile, unwrapping a small hand drum he had packed and shipped to Grinnell.